US Army Gen. Petraeus to Pakistan: Stop collaborating with Taliban
Where are the Taliban and their one-eyed leader Mullah Omar hiding out? Where's the Afghan Haqqani network now based? The answer, of course, is Pakistan.
It used to be a dirty little secret no one spoke about publicly. That changed in the past few years, but an apparent U.S. blunder involving an airstrike inside Pakistan that killed two of its border scouts could knock such overt criticism of our paradoxical ally off the table again.
The U.S. military once helped prop up Pakistan's shaky regimes by refusing to publicly acknowledge its ally's army and intelligence service's collaboration with the enemy. After Army Gen. David Petraeus took over NATO forces in Afghanistan on July 4th, however, the diplomatic niceties eased after years of "See no evil," and pressure mounted on Pakistan's army to hit the Taliban like they meant it.
The Obama administration has leaned hard on Pakistan's current government about Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries — or as hard as anyone can with a stubborn republic fretting over India's expanding influence.
Petraeus' staff has applied its own pressure on Pakistan in almost daily blunt public statements spotlighting the embarrassing fact that the Taliban's base of operations and command and control are not even in their own country. The trend of calling out Pakistan has continued despite Petraeus' near-apology on Wednesday for the Pakistani border guards' accidental killings by a NATO chopper last month, which he said "we deeply regret."
ISAF boasted today of nabbing a Taliban facilitator, "who distributed weapons from Pakistan to commanders operating in Kandahar City." On Thursday, ISAF spokesman Col. Raphael Torres described a Badghis province Taliban "shadow governor" killed by troops as among "the few remaining shadow governors not hiding in Pakistan." And on Monday it was a captured Haqqani senior leader "who operated out of Pakistan."
"(Mullah) Omar continues to attempt leading from the safe haven in Pakistan," Torres said in a statement last week. "It's becoming clear that the Taliban's idea of leading from another country isn't terribly effective."
"It's only a matter of time before the leadership of the Taliban are forced to leave Pakistan and join the fight in Afghanistan," Torres taunted a few days earlier.
Petraeus aides also have said evildoers under the nose of Pakistan's army are recruiting foreign fighters, teaching them how to make roadside bombs and firing on U.S. and Afghan troops with mortars from well inside Pakistan. Last month, Torres said Haqqani network leaders, who coordinate closely with Mullah Omar's "Quetta Shura" Taliban and Al Qaeda, "are comfortable and safe in Pakistan."
NATO officials did not respond to questions about why Pakistan's safe havens have been focused on in press statements. Will shaming Pakistan work? Time will tell, and it's running out.
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